


strange things did happen here

by jadeddiva



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Dystopian society, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-24
Updated: 2015-02-23
Packaged: 2018-03-14 20:41:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3424877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jadeddiva/pseuds/jadeddiva
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Summary: Emma Swan doesn't know what to expect when she's sent to the drop, but Killian Jones is not it.  Captain Swan, dystopian AU, inspired by the song 'The Hanging Tree' from the Mockingjay soundtrack.</p>
            </blockquote>





	strange things did happen here

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to artielu for the fantastic beta work and for brainstorming, and to ohmyohpioneer who put together a dystopian mix for me to write this <3

**strange things did happen here**

_Are you, are you_

_Coming to the tree?_

_They strung up a man_

_They say who murdered three._

 

She finds the tree easily – she’s been through these fields more times that she can count, and she knows her way around the woods better than most of them except David. Even in the dark, she can tell it apart from the rest of the grove by its long branches, including the one that forks south while the rest of them reach for the sky. When she’s close enough to keep an eye on things but still far enough that she can make a break for it if she needs to, Emma drops her pack from her shoulder and sinks down into the wet grass (there had been rain this morning, first rain this winter, and she doesn’t care that it’s seeping through the knees of her only good jeans, she’s just grateful for the rain).

She takes out the canteen that Granny had pressed in her hand on her way out the door, takes a sip of water and studies the night sky. The clouds have parted and Emma can see the stars, but she doesn’t really know the constellations that well, even if Neal had tried to teach her, even if she was too distracted by the touch of his hand against hers and the press of his chest against her back. She was young then, and oh-so-foolish, and she wonders maybe if she had paid better attention –

She shakes her head. Now is not the time to dwell on the past, not when she’s supposed to be on high alert.

She hears him before she sees him – a muffled curse (did his foot slip on the still-wet grass?) and she grabs for the handgun that Granny had also packed, lifts it and tries to find him through its sight. She sees nothing save dark shadows and when she can’t be too sure, she lowers it.

Then, she whistles.

And he whistles back – notes low than high, and Emma knows this is ridiculous, that if the authorities wanted to, they could catch them, but she needs this drop, needs to get the codes back to David, so she edges closer. Finally, when she’s close enough to the tree that she can just about make out his form, she stands up.

Her gun is still in her hand as she approaches, taking in the canvas coat and heavy knit scarf around his neck, the stubble and the dark hair, the chiseled jaw and piercing gaze that he gives her when he finally spots her in the dark. He’s good-looking, she’ll give him that much, but then again she doesn’t know what she expected from their contact – someone older, maybe, but there’s a weight in the newcomer’s light eyes and a heaviness in his shoulders that makes her realize he’s seen some shit.

“You’re not David,” he points out, voice low and slightly accented, breaking the silence of the night.

“David’s back home, waiting for his wife to give birth,” Emma tells him, reaching into her bag for her side of the swap: bandages, salve, and a bottle of aspirin that Ruby found on one of her scavenging trips. Emma’s never had aspirin before, only knows that’s it’s supposed to be helpful for more than just headaches. She holds out the small bag, and he stares at her, then it, before finally reaching forward and taking it, looking apprehensive as hell. He tucks it into his coat and Emma is about to protest – there was a trade, just because she’s not David doesn’t mean she can be duped – but then he pulls out a piece of paper and hands it to her.

“Codes for next week,” he tells her.

Emma whistles low as she slips the paper into her bag. “You’ve got some crazy good connections,” she tells him, because this shit isn’t easy to get, and he shrugs, taking a step back.

“I do what I can,” he tells her. “By the way, tell David I like this arrangement better – I was tired of seeing his ugly mug each week.” He punctuates his comment with a leer and a wink, and turns away from her, disappearing into the darkness as silently as he arrived. Emma does the same, making sure to click the safety on her gun before stowing it in the bag and heading back towards home.

It is peaceful in the still of the night, and Emma can almost pretend that there is no curfew, that wandering the woods at any hour is something that she can do, and not something that is forbidden and punishable by death (not like anyone will catch her, she knows her way too well).

When she finally gets back home, she chooses the back gate (David told her that the guards change shifts around the time she returns) and so she has to crouch down in the bushes until that happens before sneaking through, taking the back roads down to the apartment building where she and David both live.

Emma knocks three times softly on David’s door, and Granny opens it, looking tired and just a bit proud, and Emma knows that Mary has had her baby. She squeezes past Granny, heading into the back room where she can hear the soft sounds of voices trying hard to be quiet.         As she moves through the kitchen, she passes Ruby doing the dishes.

“How did it go?” she asks, voice barely above a whisper, and Emma shrugs.

“It went,” she says noncommittally, eager to get these codes off her hands and eager to see the baby. Ruby smiles before resuming her task, and Emma turns away and pushes the cracked bedroom door all the way open.

Mary sits in the bed, cradling a small bundle in her arms, cooing at it softly, David sitting on the bed beside her. He stands when Emma enters, and she pulls the paper out of her bag, passing it to him.

“Thanks Emma,” David says. “Did he say anything?”

“Yeah,” Emma says, taking her bag off and placing it on a nearby chair, “he said he’d prefer if I did the swaps now since you’re an ugly S-O-B.”

Mary giggles, and David frowns, but Emma appreciates that her comment hit its mark. David just shakes his head, grabs his jacket, and presses a kiss to his wife’s head before leaving, no doubt headed to drop the codes off to Gold.  

Emma sits down on the bed beside Mary, who shifts the bundle so that Emma can see the baby’s tiny face (she tries hard not to remember another time, another face, another tiny life wrapped in a blanket). “What did you name him?” she asks.

“Leo, after my father,” Mary says. “So how was your meeting?”

Emma shrugs, reaching out to brush a finger against little Leo’s cheek, and Mary laughs, a knowing laugh, as if she’s caught onto something before Emma herself has. “Sounds like you meet Killian, then.”

“Killian?” Emma looks up, frowning in confusion at Mary’s words. Killian – the other side’s man. “Should I know his name?”

“I don’t know - David always referred to him by name, so I don’t know if it’s a secret or not. I guess the two of you will figure it out.” When she catches Emma’s confused frown, Mary just shakes her head with a tired, satisfied smile, fingers finding the small thatch of hair on Leo’s face and brushing through it softly, carefully. “David tended to yield to whatever his demands were - why, I don’t know, but I think it’s because the codes are worth it. So if he wants you to be the contact, then chances are David will ask you to be the contact.” her fingers pause and she looks back up at Emma, “If you want to be, that is.”

“Do I really get a choice in the matter?” Emma asks, but she doesn’t mind it – a chance to get out of here, to move as freely as she can. Sure there’s a chance of being caught and executed, but Emma thinks it’s better her than David, especially now that he’s a father.

She glances down at the little bundle in Mary’s arms, his eyes tightly closed in the low lamplight, and her decision is made. She cannot – will not – put David in a place where this child will lose his father, and Mary her husband.

(As for Emma, well, she has nothing left to lose anymore anyway.)

…

She barely sleeps, rising with the sun and heading over to Regina’s first thing (if she times it just right, she can see Henry before he leaves for school). She has a bag of laundry in one hand and she smiles to all of the clients she passes on the way to the mayor’s younger daughter’s house.

The idea to become a washerwoman was Regina’s, and as much as she dislikes some things the other woman does (dislikes the wealth and prestige she was born into, unlike Emma who was abandoned by the side of the road, a little girl already lost), this was a good idea. Besides, Regina has done her too many favors for Emma’s dislike to be anything but superficial, and they both know it, even if they like to pretend otherwise.

It’s always easier to pretend.

She does time it right – Henry bursts from the door just as Emma arrives, smiling and greeting her with the eagerness that all ten-year-old boys seem to have in abundance ‘round here, an eagerness for the day that hasn’t been beaten out of them but will be, probably, some day. He disappears down the street quickly, backpack slung haphazardly from his shoulder, bouncing against his back as he calls _Hi Emma Bye Emma_ into the wind, and all she can do is watch.

It’s not a bad way to start the day, even if it’s bittersweet (he looks so much like Neal that her heart feels too big for her chest) and it’s only the sound of Regina clearing her throat that brings Emma back down to earth.

The mayor’s daughter is also a public official like her father, though Emma isn’t quite sure of the particulars of her role – not that it matters as long as Henry has a roof over his head and three square meals, which is better than Emma can manage herself some days. She follows Regina into the house, back into the kitchen where she deposits the bag on the table.

“He’s growing faster these days,” Regina says, grabbing this week’s laundry bag from by the stairs and handing it to Emma.

“I’ll talk to Mary about letting out his hems,” Emma promises, but Regina’s frowning.

“After just giving birth?” she asks, reaching for her handbag and pulling out her wallet.   Emma shrugs.

“They’ve got to eat.” This makes the other woman pause, her mouth a thin line, and she doesn’t say anything else - just gives a quick nod, a Emma doesn’t let it stop her, she just slings the bag over her shoulder, the weight reassuring against her body. 

Regina holds out the cash and Emma takes it, not bothering to count it (Regina won’t short her, not with their history) and sliding it into the pocket of her pants

There is a moment where Emma wants to ask about Henry - if he’s doing well in school (he always is) and if he needs anything (he never does) but she doesn’t, because it’s a kindness for Regina to give her as much as she has - to take in the boy and raise him right, to give all three of them a second chance at a life. There’s a moment, too, when she wants to tell Regina about the drop, when she wants to admit what she’s doing - for what good, she doesn’t know.

But instead she bites her lip, pats the wad of cash in her back pocket, and takes a step back.

“Have a good week,” Emma says, turning and heading back out the door, back to her little shack of a workspace where there’s more laundry to be delivered and enough tedious work to keep her mind occupied, and not thinking about the dangers of doing this (but her mind is made up about the drop and there’s no going back; and at least Henry will be cared for, even if he doesn’t know that it matters to her).

 

_Strange things did happen here_

_No stranger would it be_

_If we met at midnight_

_In the hanging tree_.

 

 

She makes it to the tree before he does, not for the first time and hardly for the last (Emma wonders if it’s part of his game, to have her arrive first and wait for him, because in the brief period of time she’s gotten to know Killian, he does tend to have a flair for the dramatic).    

She settles into its gnarled roots on the side that faces the road, her back pressed against the wood, before she takes out the biscuit she saved from lunch and starts to nibble on it. She always gets hungry waiting for him because it takes him so freaking long sometimes that she wonders where his outpost actually is. She knows there are several more out beyond the pines, several outposts whose names she struggles to remember (they go by strange names like Oz and Neverland and she wonders when the Authority got such a strange sense of humor, to name their shanty towns in such a way). But just as much as Emma wonders where he comes from, she knows he won’t tell her, just like she won’t tell him about Storybrooke. It’s part of their arrangement, and that works well for both of them.

Even if she’d like to know more. She wants to know more about what he does, and how he gets them the information she brings back to David. She wants to know where he lives, and what he does in his free time during the week between drops. She wants to know more about him, even though it seems stupid to her ears, even if her entire body rebels at the thought that she might actually be intrigued by Killian Jones.

“You’re pining for him,” Mary tells her as they scrub laundry together, the air full of steam and moisture, Emma’s hair sticking to her forehead and her shirt sticking to the small of her back.

“You’ve gone soft in the head,” Emma responds, plunging her hands back into the scalding water, trying to get the minute stains out of Zelena Mills’ fancy lace tablecloth. The mayor’s eldest daughter pays good money for Emma’s services, as do the other important men and women of Storybrooke, and doing the laundry is enough to help her keep a roof over her head with enough left to let her slip some money to people who do her a solid and keep her out of trouble.

“I’ve seen you before drop day,” Mary tells her, pulling what looks like a dress shirt of Mr. Gold’s from her own bucket, wringing it out and taking it to the line. When she returns, she grabs another shirt from the pile. “You get anxious.”

“That’s because I don’t want the Authority to find and kill me,” Emma protests (there is still a speck of dirt she can’t seem to scrub away, and so she scrubs harder, she can’t afford to lose a client these days, especially one like Zelena with her love of fancy clothes and linens).

“You get anxious and nervous,” Mary tells her. “And then when you get back, you look happy, and I know no one who has to walk all those miles in the dark, and then sneak past the guards, could be happy.”

Emma abruptly decides the stain is as gone as it will ever be, rinses it in cold water, and then takes it outside to hang dry. When she returns, she tells her friend, “whatever you want to believe,” as if it doesn’t matter, because it doesn’t.  

Because Emma doesn’t pine.

Pining would mean that she actually cared about someone other than herself (and she does care about a small number of people, enough that she can count them out on the fingers of her right hand) but _he_ is not one of them. He’s just someone she meets up with once a week (for at least half a dozen weeks so far, give or take) to exchange goods and information all while saying _go fuck yourself_ to the Authority.

(She’s stopped keeping her hand on her gun while she’s around him, which is no small step for her, so that’s progress).

There is a whistle, and she knows he is here, so she finishes up her biscuit and whistles back, and damn if her traitorous heart doesn’t beat a little faster, a little harder when he sits down next to her, shoulder brushing against her own, sending a shock right through her.

 _It’s because he’s attractive_ , Emma tries to tell herself, glancing over at Killian in the faint light of the stars. At least, she thinks he’s attractive - his jawline could cut glass and his eyes are so light, even in the dark, and she likes the way he always looks a little disheveled at the end of the day, with his scruffy beard and his hair that stands up as if he keeps running his hands through it (so maybe his job is stressful to him – doctor? official?). She likes the figure he cuts in his canvas coats and bulky knits, the handmade scarf around his neck giving her glimpses of the skin beneath (she wonders if he works outdoors, if he is tan or pale like her).

(She also wonders who knit him that scarf that he wears religiously the handful of times she’s seen him, even if the weather is improving as the seasons change and the night’s no longer so cold that she’s been wearing sweaters to bed, and she tries not to think too hard about that because thinking too hard would mean that she would have to acknowledge the way her stomach flip-flops at the thought of him with a woman and she straight-up refuses to acknowledge why).

“Do you ever stop eating?” he asks, voice soft and yet affectionate, and Emma rolls her eyes and nudges him with her shoulder, trying to stay nonchalant.

“Shut up,” she tells him, brushing off the crumbs from her jeans. “You’re always late, and I get hungry.”

“Well,” Killian says, stretching out the word, and she hears rustling, and then he drops a warm package in her lap. She unties the string and opens up the plaid cloth, surprised to find what looks like a small pie of some sort, still hot from the oven. She blinks at the unexpected gift, then frowns (is this some joke? Is there poison in the pie? Is he waiting for her to eat it to kidnap her, torture her for information? - )

“I can hear the wheels in your head spinning already, Emma.” When she glances back over at him, he’s unwrapping a similar package to reveal a pie of his own. “No ulterior motives, I promise, other than knowing that the way to a woman’s heart is through her stomach.”

“Can’t be too careful,” Emma chastises him even as she inwardly groans (he can be a flirt at times), because despite his bluster, you can’t be too careful – your neighbor could sell you out for enough food to last the winter when things get tough and thing have been tough for a very long time. But Killian merely shrugs, reaches over, and grabs her pie, taking a bite before returning it to her lap.

“There,” he says. “Now we’re both poisoned.”

Emma laughs softly into the night air. “How did – “

“I just know you.” Throwing her a cheeky smile, he starts to eat his own pie, and so Emma reaches down for hers, biting down to find that it’s potatoes and spices – something she’s never tasted before, something smoky and sharp and she likes it. It’s warm, and it’s more than her meager dinner (beans before she headed out, it’s near the end of the month and she’s almost out until rations come in at the end of the week, and even though David offered she refused to take food from them, not with Mary and the baby). So this, this is more than she’s had in a while, and better than she can make for herself, and she closes her eyes to savor it, and to keep the tears at bay because he barely knows her, this asshole who she meets once a week, but he still thinks enough of her to bring her food.

She chews slowly, because she knows that once she’s finished, they’ll just complete their exchange and then be on their way, and she just can’t tonight. Maybe it’s the pie, maybe it’s stress (there’s a dance for the rich elite tomorrow night and Emma’s been washing clothes and pressing dresses all week), maybe it’s the fact that his person she barely knows seems to know her better than other do, people who have known her longer (or maybe it’s just the fact that he actually seems to care).

She doesn’t know how to explain it – the food is just the start, because there have been times when he’s done something for her, said something that she needed to hear, and she tries not to think too much of it, tries to focus on the fact that he is just an acquaintance and barely that. He has a life beyond her (and yet he thinks of her, brings her food because he knows she will be hungry - ).

“Ready?” he asks, and Emma swallows the last bite, brushing her hands along the side of her jeans and reaching into her bag.

She’s got some extra meds for him this week – his people always seem to never have enough, and he told her a month ago that each week a new boy, lost and alone, seems to wander in from the remains of another town to stay, so she wonders how many newcomers have arrived this week. He’s got the codes for her like always, and she slips them into her bag (it feels heavier already with the weight of so much knowledge).

“And this,” Killian says, holding out a small pot, a shy smile on his lips. She opens it carefully, twisting the lid between her fingers, to find something inside of it.

“There’s a woman in town who knows her herbs,” he says, head down, scratching the back of his neck. “She said this salve helps with overworked hands.”

Emma glances down at her hands, and even in the dark she can see the roughness of her knuckles, the cracks and redness that grow each day despite Granny’s best efforts. She swallows, her throat suddenly tight, and before she can say anything he’s standing up, swinging his own bag across his shoulders.

“I should get going,” he says, and Emma glances up quickly, not ready for him to leave.

“Thank you,” she croaks out, her heart hammering in her chest, and Killian ducks his head and smiles.

“One week and a day, right?” He asks, and after she nods in agreement, he tells her, softly, “take care” and with that he is gone, trudging back in whatever direction that he came from, leaving Emma alone in the cold dark night.

Carefully, she dabs a finger into the salve, rubs it along the back of her aching, chapped hands. It stings at first, but then feels a bit better afterwards, and she exhales a breath she didn’t even know she was holding, placing the tiny pot into her bag. She’d better get going too, or else she’ll miss the shift change (she always plans ahead, always makes sure to move their time up slowly, because she’s been spending more time waiting for him, and more time with him in general).

As she heads back through the woods, she tries to ignore the feeling – of loss, of emptiness – that comes with Killian’s departure. Their drops are never the same day each week, but this week with the dance it’ll be longer until she can get away – first with the prep for it, then with the cleaning afterwards - and the thought of having to wait makes her shoulders feel ache with every step (it shouldn’t, she tells herself, he doesn’t mean anything, he is just her contact - )

But the salve in her bag and the food in her belly tell her differently, and the way that he smiled at her when he handed her the last package still makes her insides flip.

(Emma doesn’t pine – she can’t pine, because pining for people doesn’t do you jack shit, but when she makes it home and places the pot of salve on her bedside table, she wonders just what she’s doing, because none of it seems sane).

 …

Within a day, Emma’s hands are already healing enough that she makes it through dance preparations easily. She shares some with Mary, who jokingly asks for Killian to find her something for sore nipples, and Emma mock-grimaces.

“There are limits to our friendship,” she says, but she plans to ask him anyway (it couldn’t hurt).

They’re sitting on the steps outside Emma’s little washroom, sipping from a bottle of ale that Mary had brought. In the distance, they can see the lights of the grand hotel (little more than a three-story building with a brick front, which does make it better than most shacks in town) and hear the music of the band hired to let the rich citizens of Storybrooke forget, for a time, that they live in this hell.

“Henry’s there,” Emma says, taking a sip before passing the bottle back to Mary. She had pressed his clothes by hand, taking care to make sure the collars of his shirt were sharp and perfect, the hem of his new pants (growing like a weed, that kid) just right.

“Oh?” Mary asks softly, but she doesn’t ask anymore than that. No one does, even if it’s an open secret – Emma heavy with child one day, the mayor’s youngest daughter with a newborn the next – but in a place like this, deals are struck all the time between the haves and the have-nots, and everyone turns a blind eye and pretend it doesn’t happen when there’s no benefit to themselves, and there’s certainly no benefit to upsetting Regina Mills.

“Yeah.” Emma clears her throat, changes the topic (she tries not to have her thoughts linger on watching Henry from a distance as he walked to the dance, clutching Regina’s hand and swinging it between them, _he looks so much like Neal these days_ ). She makes herself change topics. “I feel like I need to bring something to Killian.”

“Oh?” If Emma was to look over, she knows she’d find Mary’s eyebrows reaching her hair, would find an amused smile on her face, so she doesn’t, merely reaching out for the bottle to be passed back to her.

“Yeah. He brought me food, and the salve, and I don’t want him getting any ideas.” She doesn’t want to owe him anything, because owing someone makes things difficult, makes you vulnerable to their whims and desires, and she doesn’t want that (she’s been there before, and she doesn’t want to be trapped again).

“Maybe he was just being kind,” Mary points out, and Emma shakes her head. The thought has occurred to her, but the man shifts between flirting and being dead-serious so fast she has can barely keep up sometimes, but she doesn’t think he was being kind (or, she doesn’t want to think he was being kind, because thinking that he was kind makes him vulnerable, and she has to imagine someone who steals codes and hikes into the woods to pass them on to strangers has some sort of ulterior motive).

“Maybe he doesn’t want David to come back,” she offers, even while her heart refuses to believe that, because it wouldn’t surprise her if he was kind, if he was just being nice, but being nice doesn’t get you anywhere unless you’re Mary, who Emma swears freaking talks to birds and likes everyone.

“You could bring him some ale,” her friend offers, and Emma considers it. In addition to being the town’s healer, Granny brews the ale that they’re enjoying, and Emma’s had some of the swill from other outposts that has been smuggled into town and shared between the townspeople after a mandatory meeting and this - this is much better.

“Yeah,” she replies noncommittally. “Maybe.”

When Emma goes to bed that night she doesn’t sleep easy. The music from the dance still echoes in her mind hours after it has ended, and she tries not to think of the mountains of clothing that will arrive on her doorstep tomorrow, full of punch stains and cake crumbs, because even if it means she’ll have more than enough money to buy some extra rations, it’ll mean long hours of work. Instead, she thinks about Killian, and the way that she feels indebted to him and his kindness.

Emma’s not used to kindness – growing up an orphan in a place like Storybrooke, she was just an extra mouth to feed, just an extra burden until Ruth Nolan took her in when she was thirteen and wandering the streets, and cared for her. She’s known David longer than she’s known anyone else, and he’s the closest thing she has to family, and while they were kind to her growing up, she’s still not used to it. It’s a strange thing, to have people do things for you without asking for anything in return, and it makes Emma uneasy because there is always a price, always something that someone wants, and she’s really not sure what it is that Killian wants from her.

(She could guess, and in the dark of the night she admits to herself that a quick tumble with him in the woods wouldn’t be such a burden, handsome as he is, but she’s no one’s whore. Not even for the codes, even if she’s not quite sure what they’re used for.)

In the end, she decides on the ale, because at least she can buy that honestly, and maybe they can share it.

In the morning all the wealthy citizens of town show up with bleary eyes and clothing in their arms, and she takes it in and tells them that it’ll be next week when they get it back (not that it matters, there won’t be another fancy gathering for months at the very least). It’s noon when Henry and Regina arrive, and Henry dashes past Mary in the front to find her, a small package in his hand.

“I snuck this out for you, to thank you for getting my clothes ready,” he whispers loudly, pressing it in her hand and dashing back to the front, to Regina’s side, grabbing her hand and holding it while asking Mary about the baby.

Emma ducks into the bedroom and opens the cloth napkin, surprised to find a crumbling piece of cake – yellow, with white frosting – inside. She hasn’t had cake in ages, and her fingers itch to pick up a crumb and try some, but she folds it back up and puts it by the window, where it will keep for a few days until she can sneak out into the woods again.

She brings the cake and ale to the next drop, and even then the cake is a bit stale, they still eat it, the sugar making her head ache and her stomach soar, washing it to down with sips of ale from the bottle they share between them. If Killian doesn’t like the stale cake, he says nothing except _thank you_ , and the silence between them is like a blanket wrapped around their shoulders, keeping the moment between them (and if her heart races and her face flushes every time his fingers brush against hers, Emma’s glad that the darkness is there to hide it.)

 

_Are you, are you_

_Coming to the tree?_

 

Emma has always been observant – paying attention is one of the things that’s kept her alive all these years, and so it’s no surprise that she notices things about Killian: the scar on his cheek; the holes in his sweaters one week that are darned the next; the way that he clenches his left hand all the time. As each week passes, they’re on more and more familiar terms with each other, but Emma’s hungry for more.

She suggests the game, even if she knows that it could backfire, even if she knows he could demand the same of her (but her secrets, like her scars, are well hidden, and she doesn’t think there’s any way he would ask the right questions to uncover them, and she’s willing to take that bet if it means learning more about him).

“I ask a question, and you answer,” she says, tossing up the apple she snagged at Mary and David’s tonight.

There is a long pause, and then Killian replies, sounding uncertain, “Are you sure?”

She’s not. She knows she’s not, but curiosity will be the death of her one day and so she nods, even if he can’t see it in the darkness. “As sure as I’ll ever be.”

The words hang between them for some time, lingering like their breath in the air, and she wonders if he’s sure - if this is something he wants to do. Emma opens her mouth to speak, but he’s too quick, changing the entire mood with his next comment.

“How is that a game? C’mon, make it fun,” Killian teases her, making a swipe for the apple but she catches it first, takes a bite before passing it to him (this casual intimacy, this way that they share their food and their space, is strange to her, because she’s never had anything so easily before as she has this).

“Okay – fine. I make a guess about you, and you tell me if I’m right or wrong,” Emma decides. Killian passes the apple back to her, chews thoughtfully before speaking.

“Let’s make a little wager, shall we? Make things interesting – if your guess is right, I bring the food next week. If it’s wrong…you bring food.”

“Fine,” she tells him, pausing a moment before adding, “and you can do the same for me.” It’s a risk, but she’s willing to take it right now (the flesh on her arms is crawling, she’s so very alert and just a bit scared, but there’s something inside of her that’s pushing her forward, past her well-defined limits, just to the edge, and she rides that rush).

They set the rules – two guesses each, third as a tie-breaker – and start the game.

Even though she thinks she knows him – even though she thinks that she’s a closed book – Emma is surprised to find out much Killian has figured out about her, and how little she really knows about him. The first week they play, she asks about the scarf and the holes, mentions a woman but that’s a hard no, and most of her guesses in the two weeks afterwards– his job, his scar, what he does in his free time – are losses. But he – oh, he gets her. He gets right away that she’s an orphan, shrugging away the correct guess easily, telling her it’s the hardness of her jaw, the set of her shoulders. She should find it frustrating, and at first she does, and a little bit scary too, that he can read her so easily, but Mary has told her that she’s something of an open book when it comes to the most obvious things, at least to those who bother to look.

“You’re good at reading people,” she tells him one week.

“Point,” he remarks, sipping on an ale that Emma has brought. “And your next question?”

“Your hand,” she says, going for the one she’s avoided. “Work-related injury.”

Killian does not look at her, merely takes another sip of his drink before shaking his head. “Sadly, that was my own fault.” He holds up the clenched fingers, and Emma can see the odd angles that they’re at, the way that he can barely move them. “I got involved with a married woman. Her husband found out, and felt the need to discipline me for my behavior. He bribed the doctor and healers to not set the bones.” Killian’s voice takes on an edge she’s never heard before. “He made me a cripple.”

Emma doesn’t know what to say – this admission is too much, not at all what she expected. The tone of his voice makes her realize there is another side of Killian she doesn’t know – the man who would get involved with another’s wife, who sounds like he would kill the man who crippled him if he had the chance. She can hardly blame him for that, to be honest - she’s punched her fair share of shitheads for less - but despite the fact that this is someone who steals codes and risks his life every week, there’s something a bit unsettling about this recent revelation (she wonders, maybe, if this is about the woman herself and not Killian’s actions). This is a new side, and she doesn’t know what to do so she does what she always does and does well: she stands up, ready to run, muscles tense and stomach clenched.

“Well, I’m crap at this game,” she tells him. “I guess I’ll have to bring something better next week,” she promises, all awkward and bumbling like a teenager (is this his biggest secret? What would he do if he found out hers?).

He lets out a sigh, running his hand through his hair, and then a short laugh slips out of his mouth as he stands up. “Sorry,” he apologizes. “It’s just - life’s not easy,” he tells her, and Emma rolls her eyes.

“You slept with a married woman,” she points out. “What did you expect - a pardon? A handshake when he found out?” This earns her a wry smile, and some of the tension leaves Killian’s shoulders as he nods (and if she’s being honest, some of the tension leaves her as well).

“Aye,” he admits, “I should have known better when I started it - maybe I was just getting what I deserved.”

The way that he admits his part in this makes her pause. Not many men in her life ever admit any sort of guilt save David (who is too good) and there’s something about the regret that seems to seep into his words, the way that he is both angry and sorrowful at once, that gives her pause, makes her instinct to run settle down. _He is not like Neal_ , she thinks suddenly, _he is nothing like Neal_ , and it is a small, small comfort.

“No one deserves to be crippled,” Emma tells him, because even though adultery is definitely not okay in her book, that is not how it should be handled. What happened to Killian was extreme - a punishment not fitting the crime, at least in her opinion. She sighs - it’s getting late, and her head hurts from all of this new information. “I better get going.”

“So what are you bringing me next time?” he asks, eyebrow raises, smirk on his lips, things shifting back to normal.  

Emma shoves her hands in the back pockets of her jeans and shrugs.

“I don’t know.” It’s getting to be spring, and Ruby makes strawberry pies that taste like heaven, and maybe she could bring him that, but her mind spins out to what she doesn’t know about him, and what she never learns, and she’s so foolish, so hung up on this mysterious man who makes her feel things she hasn’t ever felt, who makes her want things she’s avoided for years, who makes her realize that they’re just strangers meeting under a tree to damn their government all to hell –

“What about…” he trails off, tapping near his lips with his index finger, and suddenly that tough as nails attitude that got her detention in grade school rears its head (she always liked a challenge, always ready to prove she would not back down). She takes a step closer, cocks her head to the left.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” she says, eyes meeting his, watching the way that he smiles at her. She knows he’s a flirt, but there’s something flickering behind them, something she doesn’t understand and doesn’t know if she will.

But damn it, she loves a challenge.

She takes a moment to study the way that he’s staring at her intently, like no one has ever existed besides her and no one ever will – not the woman who made him that scarf or the one that darns the holes in his sweaters that she pays too much attention to – and it’s strange, after all she’s been through, to have someone look at her with so much gravity, with so much care, that she does the one thing she’s been avoiding doing for so long.

She takes a step forward, reaches for the collar of his jacket, and pulls him towards her.

There is nothing graceful or careful about the moment that their mouths collide, but there is an intensity that she didn’t expect. Killian reacts automatically, his good hand in her hair, angling her head up and into the kiss (he nips at her lips, chases them with his own, and her toes curl in her boots, she has never been kissed like this before). Emma threads her own fingers through the short hair at the nape of his neck, deepens the kiss, drops her fingers down to the soft fabric of his sweater, thumbs resting against his neck (she can feel the moan, low in his throat, when her fingers touch his skin).

They break apart, breathless, foreheads touching, and they say nothing for some time. She keeps her eyes screwed tight, licks her lips, tasting him and trying to still her ragged breathing.

“That was…” he starts, and she wants to say _a one time thing_ because that’s what this is, right? Two people in the moonlight, grabbing onto what they’ve been given, and yet she doesn’t. She bites her tongue as she steps back, reaching for her bag which she’s dropped beside the tree.

“See you next week,” she tells him before he can finish, catching the faint smile on his lips (she swears they are just a bit bruised, but it could be the darkness playing a trick on her, could be the shadows from the new growth of leaves on the tree, but when she gets home her own are kiss-stained and red, and she smiles as she falls into her bed, satisfied for the first time in weeks).

 

 

_Where dead man called out_

_For his love to flee._

 

Gossip travels like wildfire throughout Storybrooke (especially when it’s about the officers at the garrison) and so it’s not surprising that Emma finds out that there’s a new group of commanding officers arriving before it’s officially announced. She’s wary, and more than a bit apprehensive, because while they haven’t had the best officers in charge – lord knows that Lieutenant Hopper was too permissive, Captain Whale too easily bought – but she wonders why now. _The devil you know is always better than the one you don’t_ , as David likes to say, and none of them are eager and willing to have to learn a whole new routine with a whole new crew. She asks Regina about it, but Regina can’t (or won’t) tell her anything, and so she expresses her fears one night when she’s at the drop with Killian.

“It’s never a good thing when they change your command,” she says, her shoulder against his. They’re eating those delicious potato pies again, and she’s ranting when she’s not busy devouring the food in her hand. 

(They haven’t kissed since that one time, but there’s a casual intimacy between them that grows - touches, hugs, brushes of fingers against wrists. She likes this - it’s sort of like courting, sort of not, and she can tell that he wants to kiss her again but he’s holding back, and even if she won’t ask why, she likes to think he’s waiting for her permission. He doesn’t know that he’s all she thinks about some days, and then some nights, fingers drifting over her body, pretending it’s him, pretending he’s there.)

“You sound so pessimistic,” he teases her, and she shrugs, because she is a bit pessimistic as well as realistic – she’s heard rumors from other outposts, knows that the wrong garrison commander could make their life hell (could make it impossible for her to sneak away, to get information for her friends, to see him).

“I don’t much like authority – or the Authority,” she admits, remembering the stern garrison commanders of her childhood, the ones who cut the rations of the poor and orphans to feed the troops and their loyal supporters, who beat kids they caught stealing bread. People in power always abuse it, in her limited experience, and she doesn’t know about the other settlements but she’s tired of worrying about the whims of a new garrison leader, tired of worrying just want the Authority wants to subdue this time around (with Hopper, it was to increase morale enough to subdue unrest, but it only increased smuggling; with Whale, it was to stop the smuggling - like that worked out well). 

Killian nods. “No one does,” he tells her, “but they’re not all bad. My brother was a captain, and he ran a very tight garrison, a very fair group.”

“Are you trying to convince me that we might get a good garrison leader?” she asks, nudging him with her shoulder, and he shrugs.

“You never know,” he admits honestly, glancing at her and brushing the back of his neck with his hand. “May as well give them the benefit of the doubt’s all I’m saying.”

So it’s with little trepidation and great curiosity that Emma heads to the square to watch the changing of the guard. The sun is shining and the rains have let up, so everyone is out watching and it takes Emma some time before she can make her way to a spot where she can see the stage, and the officers lining it.

And that’s when she spots him, and her throat dries up and her heart hammers in her chest and no no no no **_NO_**.

Not him. Not this. Now here.

Not an officer.

There is chaos around her, cheering (because of course they’ll put on a show and cheer, even if they don’t mean it) and some women nearby are talking about how handsome he looks, their new Captain, and all Emma can think of is the way that he smiles at her in the moonlight and the way that he looks out for her, bringing her pies and food and salve and codes (no wonder he has them, he’s a high-ranking official) and –

Of course it would be like this.

Of course Killian would turn out to be the new captain of their garrison.

He introduces himself to the crowd as Captain Killian Jones, and he gives a speech about respecting good form and fairness and Emma doesn’t listen, everything is ringing in her ears and she pushes herself away from the crowd, moves back until she sees David, standing at the edges, brow-furrowed and mouth open in shock. Their eyes meet, and Emma manages to slip away in the commotion, the band playing and the children from school (Henry, oh she had wanted to see Henry) singing songs about the glory of the Authority and –

“Did you know?” she asks David when they’re alone, fingers gripping his arm, nails digging into his flesh.

David shakes his head, eyes wide and frightened. “I had no idea – I just did what Gold asked, I went into the woods and he was there – I didn’t know.”

Emma lets go, fight leaving her, feeling limp and lost. There will be no more drops because there need not be any drops, and every feeling of connection – every moment spent between her and Killian – feels dirty in the light of this news, in the light of everything she now knows.

Emma does not go back to the parade, does not go to the celebration that night. Instead, she stays inside her house, in bed, wrapped in blankets, chilled to the bone even though spring is here and the nights are growing warmer. All she can think about is their kiss, the feel of his skin beneath her fingers (the feel of her skin beneath her fingers, imagining it was him). She buries her head in her pillow, and mourns what never can be, even if she doesn’t want to admit that she’s mourning at all, even if she doesn’t want to admit that she’s mourning to begin with.

 


End file.
